Pumpkin Spice Soap Recipe

My house is smelling like the holidays. I made this Pumpkin Spice Soap Recipe a few weeks ago and just LOVE the color and scent! These are great for scenting your kitchen or bathroom. They also make wonderful gifts!

I’ve had a number of people ask me how to add something like pumpkin puree into a soap recipe. After all, it’s more than adding a bit of natural coloring or essential oils. I mean, it’s a bunch of pumpkin!So, how much do we add?

Also, when do you add it; to the lye water, to your soap at trace?

I can answer all these questions and give you options.

Options for Pumpkin Spice Recipe

Instead of adding the pumpkin puree at trace, you can add it to your lye water. This will darken your soap and eliminate the need to use the turmeric and paprika.

****You must discount your water by how much pumpkin puree you decide to use. In other words, if the 1 cup of pumpkin puree weighs 5oz, then only use 12 oz of water instead of the full 17oz (17-5=12).****

If you’ve made a pumpkin soap before, I’d love to hear how you did it and what you added! Let us know in the comments below.

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THANK YOU for this recipe. I enjoy your site & find it useful in my lifestyle. I follow a few
others as well & sometimes get my wires crossed. It seems like you have grass fed critters
@ your home ( ? ) but we don’t, so do NOT animal products.
My question is : may I replace the lard/tallow w/ another oil/vegetable shortening ?
Thanx

Great questions. Turmeric and paprika are not irritants (unless you have an allergy to one obviously). Cinnamon powder can be in very large quantities, but a tsp used in this soap would not be an irritant. You should use cinnamon leaf essential oil, not cinnamon bark or cinnamon cassia as it burns the skin. Cinnamon leaf does not. They do not provide exfoliation. For that, use a half cup equivalent of blended oats.

Thank you so much for the quick response! Got a batch going now! Taking my 5 minute break from mixing. About how long til trace? Just a general idea. (I’m beginning to be made fun of the notion of pumpkin soap, so a little more knowledge may dispel the house full of nae-sayers!) LOL!

Pumpkin in a bar soap! Who knew? I also didn’t know that cinnamon bark oil would irritate the skin in such small quantities. I’ll be taking great care when using it on the skin. Your soap sounds like such a lovely addition to the powder room. The smell of fall!

Technically, the soap can safely be used between 24-48 hours after being removed from the mold (sometimes an extra day is needed). This is controversial because it has been passed down through generations that it takes longer. Scientifically speaking, you can test the soap and see that the saponifaction process finishes within the 24-48 hour period. But there is still enough water in the soap that it will be very soft. Ideally, they should be cured for 4-6 weeks to become lovely hard bars.

I’m making this soap now and decided to add the pumpkin to the lye water. I’ve never had such difficulty getting the temperatures to lower and match up with the oil mixture as I have today making this soap. The temp for the pumpkin/lye would start going down and then it would spike up another 10 degrees, so I would heat up my oil mixture again to keep both temps the same. The time it is taking to reduce it down to 100 degrees is also taking forever. Right now it is at 115, so hopefully it won’t spike up again and we will finally get somewhere.
I’ve always made soaps in the past with temps around 120. But, I am following your recipe and trying to get them both down to 100 because I don’t know if you have a specific reason for the lower temperature. I would love to know if there is a reason to bring it down to 100 vs. 120 and if anybody else has had problems with the pumpkin/lye water mixture spiking and lowering and spiking, etc. Thanks so much! I sure hope this soap turns out.

Adding pumpkin to the lye water can defintiely effect temps. as you are seeing. I prefer to add it when I add the essential oils .
You can go ahead and mix at a higher temp. I’ve never done as high as 120. Even 110 takes a lot longer to come to trace. I prefer the lower temp. because it comes to trace within 5 minutes, vs. 20 to 30 minutes of mixing and waiting when combining at higher temps.

Thank you so much for the fast reply! The temp of the oil mixture is at 105 but the lye/pumpkin spiked up to 120 again. Hmph! I think next time, I’ll add the pumpkin with the essential oils like you do. By the way, I just read through the other comments and did not know that cinnamon cassia will burn the skin. That is the essential oil that I have. Won’t it be mild once added with the oils – like you would with using a carrier oil with essential oils? Now I’m nervous to use it and I don’t have enough of the other essential oils to do without it. Well, this will be a test batch I guess! Thank you again for your fast reply.

I do not recommend using cinnamon bark or cassia! If you don’t have enough of the other e.o.s to make 1.5oz it would be better for it to have a lighter scent then chance it being too harsh on the skin.
Place the lye water in a cold water bath in your sink if it’s still too hot.

Ok. I may have to dump the batch then. I went ahead and used the cinnamon cassia before I saw your reply. Also, the oil mixture was at 105 and the lye/pumpkin mixture was at 110 degrees. I mixed them for 5 minutes, then after 2 minutes I added the essential oils and paprika. It traced too quickly to where I could not get all the essential oil and paprika mixed in completely before it turned to thick pudding. I ended up mixing it all in and poured it into the mold. I was really lumpy by that time. So, the batch will probably have to be dumped anyway. I think others can learn from my mistakes here. I honestly wonder if altitude has something to do with temperatures and tracing times because I think I would have been better sticking with 120 degrees – but maybe not. Maybe it was just the pumpkin/lye mixture that threw things off for me. And, next time I’ll know better about the cinnamon essential oils! Thank you for the help and education! Blessings to you.

You can render your own by cooking down meat or pork fat. If you don’t have any, grocery store butchers usually will give you their fat trimmings or charge a very small amount. You can also use lard. Be careful of sources.

I was excited to make this soap for fall but I encountered something that has never happened before. I followed your recipe, insulated it, as I like it to gel, for 2 days and when I uncovered it the top had “fallen” like a cake and at least 1/2 cup of orange oil sat on top. Poured it off. The soap was very soft and oily. I cut it anyway so it could start curing. I soaped at 85°. Any guess to my problem? I did discount the water but I did use 14oz of pumpkin. Too much pumpkin? Thanks for your help!

I hope it’s able to be salvaged without being cold processed. I can think of a few things that may have happened. Possibly a combination of all four. 1) too much pumpkin, which interfered with all of the oils reacting with the lye (I don’t think so though). 2) false trace; it was too cool and looked like it was at trace, but it wasn’t. 3) You did not combine the oils thoroughly with the lye water so once it sat covered, the oil that wasn’t incorporated rose to the top. 4) not enough lye… I’m not sure which one, but possibly one or more of those reasons. If it doesn’t harden, hot process it and you’ll still have a fabulous batch of soap.

Thanks for your prompt reply! I’m pretty sure my calculations were correct and my oils are well incorporated. It must’ve neb the trace issue because it was still thin when I poured. On occasion I would blend “just a bit more” past the stage it was at and ended up with it accelerating so quickly that I barely got it in the mold. The bars are getting less oily since cutting yesterday so they may be salvageable. If not, I’ll HP them. Thanks for your help!

Hi,
I’ve never made soap before and I’m doing a little bit of research. I’ve noticed that some soap has to be cured for a couple weeks after they are removed from the mold. Is that the case with this recipe as well?
Thanks, Aubrey

Hot Processed soap can be used immediately after cooling, though it will continue to harden. Cold Processed soap (like seen here) should cure 3 weeks or more. The lye will finish processing and water will continue to evaporate so that it hardens. According to some people, you can use the soap within 48 hours, because the entire process if finished (just as it is after hot processing) and all that’s left is the hardening process. This is debated though, so I recommend 3-6 weeks.

I am going to try this recipe during the first week of November 2018. it is my first soap recipe. step four says “until trace” …. but I am not sure what that means. how much does it make, in volume? I want to make sure I have enough molds. thanks for the help.